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In for the next one.
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Oct 24, 2013 20:10
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I was going to say "read it and weep" but then I realized that I would be setting myself up for many cruel comments regarding my writing and its ability to provoke tears. So, instead, presented without comment: The Raid 995 Words
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Oct 28, 2013 02:35
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It is done. (And I am too lazy to do a screen grab.) Kazka Press To Me Today at 10:57 PM We have received your submission and will reply to it in the near future. Thank you! -Michael Haynes Editor, Kazka Press
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Oct 29, 2013 05:01
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In.
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Oct 29, 2013 20:15
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Do Robots Dream of LeAnn Rimes? (998 Words) When SIGMA Robotics first approached Shelby to do music therapy with their robots, she thought it was a joke. She was still half expecting a video of her singing to a robot to go viral. PARSON robots were developed to work as aides to the elderly. With the rapidly aging population, there weren’t enough beds in assisted living facilities to provide care for everyone that needed it. The PARSON robot was designed to allow the elderly to remain in their homes by assisting with the tasks of daily living such as bathing, toileting, household maintenance, medication management and ordering groceries and other supplies. In trials, the robots had performed exceptionally well, but people were dissatisfied. In surveys they complained repeatedly about the robot’s inhuman affect. They wanted the robot’s assistance, but they also wanted the robot’s companionship. SIGMA had been struggling for two years to program a personality for the PARSON robot with little success, when the CEO had seen a profile of Shelby’s work with autistic children on the news. When she described on the program the difficulty autistic children have understanding emotion and how musical therapy can help, he had seen parallels to the challenges they were experiencing with the PARSON model and had called Shelby the next day. After working in a rundown elementary school all day with boisterous children and harried teachers, SIGMA’s office seemed almost surreal. The lab was spartan in decoration, with crisp white walls and a navy blue carpet. The staff had left for the day by the time she arrived, so there was only the faint hum of the air conditioning in the hushed office. She walked down the hall to the furthest door and opened it. “Hi PARSON, did you miss me?” Shelby asked brightly, walking in the door and setting her guitar case on a table. The robot considered the question before responding. “I’m sorry; I do not understand the feeling ‘miss’.” “What is the definition?” she asked. PARSON referenced the term. “Miss: to discover or feel the absence of.” Shelby opened her guitar case and pulled out her battered old guitar. She slipped the flowered strap around her neck and plucked the strings to make sure it was in tune. “I’ll sing you a song that is an example of the feeling ‘miss’, she said and she perched on a stool opposite PARSON and began to sing LeAnn Rimes “How Do I Live”. PARSON cocked his head to listen to the music, an affectation that always made Shelby smile. He had been programmed to mimic human movements so that he would appear natural, but they only seemed to emphasize the alien quality of the robot. It was strange experience singing to PARSON. He would stare at her intently, recording every nuance and referencing and cross referencing the information in order to create a profile of the emotion. It was a strain to remain fully focused on the emotional meaning of the song while she sang it, but she knew that if she let her mind wander PARSON could incorrectly relate the emotion to boredom. She finished the song and put her guitar down. “Okay,” she said, “What do you make of ‘miss’?” PARSON scanned the data he had compiled while she was singing. “I detected that ‘miss’ contains elements of both ‘love’ and ‘sad’,” he responded. Shelby nodded. “Okay, I have another example. Listen closely to this one,” she instructed as she began singing John Waite’s “Missing You”. PARSON listened carefully to the song but isolated the data he recovered from it. He had found that when Shelby said “listen closely” there was something unique she wanted him to learn. Shelby finished singing. “What did you think of that one?” PARSON frowned. “This one is more difficult. I detected feelings of ‘love’, ‘sad’ and ‘anger’, but the words didn’t match.” Shelby looked at him intently. “Which one did you believe, the words or the feelings?” PARSON considered. “The feelings.” Shelby gave a small whoop of excitement and did a little dance on her stool. One of the biggest difficulties she had encountered in working with robots was teaching them to look past the literal meaning of words and trust in their analysis of the emotional content of language. PARSON had just made a huge breakthrough. “I don’t understand why humans don’t just say what they mean,” PARSON said. “Why would say you aren’t missing someone when you are?” Shelby laughed. “In this case, I think the answer may be pride. Tell me, what is pride?” “Pride: a feeling that you respect yourself and deserve to be respected by other people.” PARSON thought about it. “So, the one party injured your feelings, but because you feel you deserve respect you refuse to admit it?” Shelby thought it over. Working with PARSON required a level of analysis that often made her head ache. “It’s like, not wanting to give someone the satisfaction of having hurt you.” “Why would someone derive satisfaction from hurting another person?” “It’s complicated,” Shelby explained. “If by ending a relationship you hurt someone, it means that you were special to them. People want to feel special, to feel important, so in a way causing pain can be gratifying.” PARSON consolidated the data from that song into his database. “Sometimes I think I will never understand humans.” She reached out and put her hand on his. “You have made incredible strides. You will get this, don’t get discouraged.” Her stomach growled. “This human has to eat. I’m going to put my supper in the microwave. I’ll be right back, okay? “I ain’t missing you at all,” PARSON deadpanned. Shelby laughed as she grabbed her supper. “See, you are getting it!” she called over her shoulder as she walked out of the room. PARSON spent the next few minutes cross referencing the information he had learned. Softly, he played a recording he had made of Shelby singing and then tentatively referenced her name under the emotion ‘love’.
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Nov 4, 2013 03:47
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You hurt my tiny panda bear feelings on the last one, but I'm still in. I'd like a flash rule as well, please.
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Nov 5, 2013 21:38
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The White (1,164 words) Peter Frampton scuttled through the automatic doors behind a family of sophisticates, sipping their tea from bone china with raised pinky fingers. This store alarmed him with its heavy reliance on the color red, which he refused to wear in case he angered an errant bull, but need drove him through the doors and he nervously ran his fingers over his thumbs and strategized. He had escaped from the ward just before eleven and hopped on the first bus, but he knew they would be serving lunch soon and would notice his absence. He just had to believe he could get to it before they caught him in their butterfly nets. The product he needed was in the corner of the store, not the far corner, but not the near corner either. The near corner had the popcorn and the bathrooms, but not a combination of the two. Peter Frampton didn’t trust this place enough to find out what was in the far corner. You had to take a left to get there, and the goats sit on God’s left hand, and Peter Frampton wasn’t a goat. The corner he wanted was the one where you go straight, straight, straight down the long shiny aisle and then you are in a corner. That shiny aisle was problem number one, but Peter Frampton was ready and he pulled his watercolors out of his duffel bag. He spit into the small patty of black paint, rubbed his thumb in it and smeared it on his glasses, left and right. Thus darkened and looking a lot like Neo, Peter Frampton began walking cautiously down the long aisle. To his left were the Royal Jewels which had been pillaged shortly after the Queen had been Overthrown and Raped ™ on Live TV. The thought of it still made Peter Frampton feel awful because he was pretty sure that lady was his mother and these jewels were his but the last time he had tried to reclaim them his sister Gabby had put him in the Cage. She was jealous because Peter Frampton was King now but when he had offered to take out the gunk that made her Not King she had just sighed. To the right was the food. Peter Frampton was on a strict cottage cheese diet so he put his hand next to his right eye and hurried past so he wouldn’t be tempted. Past the food were the beauty supplies. Peter Frampton liked to run his fingers over the bristles of the brushes and to snap and unsnap the clips and he looked achingly down the aisle, with its multicolored headbands and snazzy barrettes. There was a woman standing there and the static coming off of her made Peter Frampton feel scratchy inside. He tucked around the corner and flattened himself against the shelving and scratched his fingernails down his face to calm himself down. He looked up and shrieked when he saw the static creeping over the shelving towards him. He was going to have to move quickly. Peter Frampton slid back into the main aisle, looking over his shoulder for the woman with the static. It was pouring out of her like a volcano and spilling across the floor just behind him. He was running now, his feet flapping in his unlaced tennis shoes. He had to get it, he had to get it, he had to get it. He ran past the potions and tinctures, the snake oil leaving greasy puddles beneath cheerfully capped bottles. He reached the end of the long aisle where they kept the bank of televisions, which were each showing the same slavering dog, the froth dripping hypnotically from his fangs. Peter Frampton had gotten lost in the dog before and he dropped to his knees and crawled along the floor to avoid its gaze. He crawled down the aisle to the right, knees slipping on his open jacket as he worked his way toward the corner. There was a man there, a strong man, a sturdy man and Peter Frampton clutched the hem of his jacket and tried to tell him about the woman with the static but the man’s face became a mask and blood poured out of his mouth and Peter Frampton scrambled away in horror. His foot slipped out of his shoe and he fell hard on his knees and his glasses popped off his face. His heart was pounding as he crawled on the floor, patting his hand on the ground, desperately searching for his glasses. He was so close. Finally, his hand closed over the familiar frames and Peter Frampton gave a shaky sigh of relief when he put the darkened lenses back over his eyes. He was totally disoriented but then he looked up and he was There. The aisle was immaculate, shiny, white box after white box sitting neatly on the shelves. Peter Frampton looked on it with wonder and then with dawning horror. The boxes were different. There was more than one. He stood up shakily and ran his hands over the boxes, similar in shape and size but each with a different set of hieroglyphics. He started opening the boxes frantically, hoping to find a clue on the tubes inside. Like the boxes, each one had strange characters demarcating some elemental difference. It was then that Peter Frampton knew with certainty that short of the One True Box, they were all poisoned and he cursed bitterly. In the distance, he could hear buzzing of the flies that swarmed the heads of the white coats and he grabbed two of the boxes in a panic and tucked himself into the corner. He pulled his glasses off, rubbed his eyes quickly with his fists and strained to read the text on the boxes. The box in his left had silvery glitter that made his eyes slip off the package and twist around the edges. He squinted hard but the glitter sent strobe lights flashing in his brain and he looked away. The box in his right hand had a small figure holding some sort of bristled staff. Peter Frampton pulled the tube from each box, heart beating wildly. The hushed whisper of sensible shoes scuffed over tile floor and Peter Frampton could hear the gentle coos of “Mr. Jersted…. Mr. Jersted….” He shook his head angrily to block out the noise, hunched his shoulders and looked once more at the tubes. Left, glitter. Right, bristles. And then the realization tore through him like a bolt of lightning: Peter Frampton wasn’t a goat. He uncapped the tube on the right, plunged it into his mouth and squeezed, his mouth hungrily devouring the thick white paste, the mint curling through him, drawing his body open as it lifted him from the floor and he hovered, arms outstretched, glowing with divinity. Tears spilled openly down his cheeks and he hardly noticed when they tackled him, his heart was so full with love for all mankind.
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Nov 11, 2013 03:42
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